New Delhi: As his meeting with L K Advani ended on Friday afternoon,BJP president Rajnath Singh quietly told the veteran leader that the decision to name Narendra Modi the partys prime ministerial candidate could not be put off.

Ab baa t jahan pahunch gayi hai, wahan se wapas jaana sambhave nahin hai (the matter has now reached a point from which there can be no going back), Rajnath had told the sulking stalwart on Friday afternoon,according to BJP sources.

The blunt no although couched in polite and deferential Hindi snuffed out the Advani camps last hope that fear of the veterans public annoyance would lead BJP to back off from its plan to declare Modi its prime ministerial choice for 2014.

Rajnath reached Advanis sprawling Prithviraj Road bungalow as part of a last-ditch effort to get the former deputy PM to relent on his opposition to Modis projection as PM candidate.Significantly,the talks were held in the backdrop of the Advani camps assessment that RSS and BJP may agree to defer the decision in exchange of an assurance that the former deputy PM would support Gujarat CMs candidature after state polls scheduled for October-November.

The assessment believed to be the result of the extravagantly optimistic interpretation of a few peace makers came as a shocker to the BJP and RSS leadership who lost no time to disabuse the intermediaries of the viability of the proposal.

RSS No.2 Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi is learnt to have reacted to the truce proposal by citing Advanis oft-quoted view that RSS had no business getting into the micromanagement of BJP affairs.Rajnath also dismissed the idea.But while the intermediaries swiftly aborted their mediation bid,the veteran did not give up hope yet,perhaps also because the mediators could not marshal the courage to admit to their estimates having gone wrong.

That Rajnaths refusal to back down surprised Advani is,according to sources,borne out by his letter where he criticized the BJP chief.

Advani seemed to have made another miscalculation.He mistakenly believed that former party president Nitin Gadkari and senior leader Ananth Kumar would support him at the meeting of the parliamentary board.The addition of Gadkari and Kumar to Sushma Swaraj and Murli Manohar Joshi would have taken the number of the pro-deferment faction to almost half of the 11-member parliamentary board,excluding the ailing Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

A near-vertical split would have made it difficult for the BJP leadership to press ahead with its plan for an early decision on Modi.This assessment may have led Advani to briefly consider attending the meeting of the parliamentary board.

This was not to be.Gadkari had indeed turned sympathetic to Advani,an episode which is cited to emphasize the acuity of the saying that there are no permanent friends or foes in politics.But Advani was nave to believe Gadkari would defy the RSS.The Nagpur-based leader,who owes his prominence on the national scale to RSS chief Mohanrao Bhagwat,takes pride in his true swayamsewak credentials.

Kumar,who had appeared openly aligned with Advani and Swaraj,had since cast himself in the role of a peacemaker with a dexterity that remains the subject of banter in the party.

Mumbai/New Delhi: Narendra Modi and LKAdvanimay share the dais at a party rally in Bhopal on September 25.

All party leaders will be there.You will find both, BJP president Rajnath Singh said in Mumbai when asked if Advani would attend the rally Modi is to address in Bhopal.

If that happens,that will be the first time Modi will share the dais with Advani since the Gujarat chief ministers selection as the PM candidate.Advani had skipped the BJP parliamentary board meeting which chose Modi as the PM candidate on Friday.

Rajnath,on his part,is set to kickstart the Delhi BJPs assembly election campaign next week together with Nitin Gadkari (the poll in-charge ),Sushma Swaraj,Arun Jaitley,Amit Shah,Navjot Singh Sidhu and others.

The partys Delhi unit will focus on like power,water,inflation,corruption,lack of development in rural areas and unauthorised colonies.

Talking about Narendra Modis anointment as BJPs prime ministerial candidate,state party leaders said the move would boost their chances,especially among the youth as Modi has a huge following among them